Corps boots 5 staff sergeants in sex case

As the armed forces put the spotlight on sexual misconduct in their ranks, the Marine Corps is kicking five senior non-commissioned officers from Camp Pendleton out of the military because of accusations of adultery and fraternization with a female lance corporal.

The staff sergeants dismissively called “The Fab Five” by some on base say they have been falsely accused by the woman, who is not being named because she has not been charged with a crime. They say they are unable to receive a fair trial, even in front of a jury of fellow Marines, because of undue “command influence” from their commanding general and pressure to eradicate sexual misconduct.

According to court documents, the woman was in the process of being separated from the Marine Corps for drug use and was in intensive outpatient treatment for suicidal depression before the allegations came to light. Other Marines reported last March that she was sexually involved with several men she worked with in Communications Company, Combat Logistics Regiment 17, 1st Marine Logistics Group.

The woman had reported being raped by her Marine recruiter and abused on other occasions before she joined the military in 2010. After the command began investigating her relationships in the company, she tried to commit suicide again, by cutting her arm with a kitchen knife in the Camp Pendleton barracks, according to court documents.

She was hospitalized afterward at Naval Medical Center San Diego for two days.

The investigating officer for the command concluded that the senior Marines she was involved with from her company “knew about (her) struggles with mental health and took advantage of (her) weak mental health and their senior rank to coerce” her into fraternization.

The case comes at a time when the services are tightening the screws on standards of conduct, taking a sterner look at everything from alcohol abuse to sexual impropriety and leadership mistakes. The lower tolerance for missteps among military service members is spurred by downsizing and a more competitive career environment, an estimated 36 percent increase in sexual assault in recent years, high rates of suicide, the integration of female troops into formerly all-male units and bad publicity from recent scandals.

Staff Sgt. Lee Sykes, a married father of two daughters, said sexual misconduct has become such a hot potato in the military that male Marines like him are being unfairly rushed out the door. Sykes was accused of having sex with the woman once when they both were drunk. He was convicted at court martial last week of fraternization and sentenced to a letter of reprimand and reduction in rank to sergeant, making him ineligible to reenlist in September when his contract ends.

“The Marine Corps, and the military in general, is dealing with a lot of sexual assault. I am not saying those sexual assaults have not taken place, but I feel that male Marines, we are getting hammered, hands down, if a female mentions anything sexual in nature,” Sykes said. “As a staff sergeant with no prior record of anything, I am not given the benefit of the doubt.”

Sykes’ wife Raquel said her husband is innocent and they have never had problems with infidelity during their 11-year marriage.

“The Marine Corps is his life. It’s the Marine Corps first and our schedule has to fit around him and his Marines. That’s why I am so shocked that anyone would say this. He has never done anything to any woman, ever.”

Sykes appealed to the base inspector general, his Texas congressman and the media because he did not believe he could get a fair hearing at court martial. “No one wants to disappoint the general,” Sykes said.

However, a recent case at Camp Pendleton involving a former Marine recruiter that attracted national attention indicates military juries do not always rubber stamp the wishes of the commander who convened the court martial.

On May 3, a jury of Marines who were presented DNA evidence of the crime convicted Gunnery Sgt. Nicholas Howard of raping a woman at a backyard get-together when she was temporarily separated from her boyfriend. Military prosecutors asked for a sentence of five to seven years. The jury, facing no minimum sentencing requirements, stripped Howard of his rank and gave him a dishonorable discharge but no jail time.

When the sentence was announced “the entire chain of command’s jaws dropped,” Anchorage police detective Brett Sarber, who testified at the trial, told the Anchorage Daily News. “They could not believe it.”

Adultery, like oral sex with one’s spouse or anyone else, is a crime under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, whose 1950s-era provisions are overdue for an update according to prominent military law experts.

Adultery cases preferred to courts-martial

114 in 2010

104 in 2011

117 in 2012

39 since mid-May 2013

Source: Marine Corps headquarters

But adultery is rarely prosecuted unless other crimes are involved such as drug use.

The added scrutiny of sexual misconduct does not appear to have resulted so far in an increase in adultery charges involving consensual sex. In 2010, 114 adultery cases were preferred to courts-martial; in 2011 it was 104; in 2012 it was 117 and through mid-May, 39, according to figures from Headquarters Marine Corps.

A single service member can be charged with adultery for knowingly entering into a relationship with someone who is married, according to Capt. Eric Flanagan, a spokesman for Marine Corps Staff Judge Advocate Division.

The command recommended that the woman who claimed she had sex with the “Fab Five” be charged with fraternization and adultery. Others apparently decided the woman had enough troubles.

The night before her third suicide attempt, she sent a text to one of the staff sergeants she was allegedly involved with, saying: “I should just burn in hell. I don’t want to live and I don’t know when to say no because I just want to fit in and be nice. All I want is a nice house a husband who adores me and beautiful healthy children. I just want to be normal and apparently I am an outcast.”

Among the others in the Camp Pendleton sex case, Staff Sgt. Tyrell Williams was tried by special court martial before a jury of military peers and was found guilty of conspiracy to commit fraternization. He is serving a 90-day sentence in the brig and was reduced in rank.

Staff Sgt. Dwayne Novak was convicted by the military judge. Supporters complain that his accuser could not describe key details about his body such as a large tattoo and scars across his abdomen, which he demonstrated by stripping in court.

Staff Sgt. Tyrone Johnson struck a plea bargain and was given non judicial punishment this month, including a letter of reprimand and 30 days to leave the Corps.

Staff Sgt. Christopher Woods was found guilty of fraternization. He was reduced in rank to lance corporal, sentenced to 60 days confinement in the barracks away from his wife and three daughters who live on base, and is being kicked out of the Corps.

He was accused of prostituting the female lance corporal, who had a reputation for keeping a list of the staff NCOs she had sex with and who owed her money, according to court documents.

Investigators found an explicit photo of Woods on the woman’s computer. Cellphone records indicated they exchanged 1,119 messages in a four-month period. But Woods’ wife said the two communicated a lot because they worked together.

“In the Marine Corps it’s guilty until proven innocent. I feel the command has a lot of influence on the military people doing this trial for them. It is not fair to these men who served all these years in the Marine Corps,” said Ebonie Woods, a full-time housewife. “They believe this female over all of these guys. It’s like a stab in the back.”

Woods plans to appeal, a process that can take up to two years. In the interim, he and his family will move in with relatives in Atlanta after he is discharged from the Corps, Ebonie said.

“He was going to be a career Marine,” she said. “Now we can’t afford our bills. It’s a real hardship.”